Monday, December 04, 2006

Just Stopping By

We are in the midst of processing the 2 deer our son Jonathan shot during hunting season. We had planned to take care of the venison during Thanksgiving weekend, but Jim was sick and we just let the meat freeze upstairs. Unfortunately, we didn't let the venison thaw out long enough, so we are kind of butchering rather than processing! That's okay, though, as we love to use hamburger. Goes farther that way.

In spite of the very cold wind chills, the basement has stayed warmer than it did last week. Jim decided to try keeping the floor heat going along with the woodstove, and that has helped immensely. It's still quite breathtaking at night when crawling into my sleeping bag (!!), but it isn't unbearable any more.

My oldest son Jonathan and I are in cahoots together to work on a book this winter (don't ask me where we'll find the time, but we'll manage), facetiously titled, "Improvisational Homesteading: Making Do." The boys have 2 posts already for me to work on in the "drafts" file, so I better get busy. Jonathan posted some photos and wrote about our first goat shed over at his blog. (The link didn't work, so try going to www.jonathanjbartlett.blogspot.com .) You folks will be our guinea pigs, in trying our hand at writing. Jim tells me I need to just do a little every day, but my personality would rather spend lots of time in stretches! Guess I need to just do the best I can.

By the way, I found an interesting little tidbit when going through the mail the other day. This came from a little booklet in a sample issue of "Country Woman Magazine." Here goes:

"Here's a trick to save your hairdo, especially during plowing and planting time. This trick works for me when I sleep, too. I wrap toilet tissue lightly around my hair, holding it in place with thin bobby pins. I tie a nylon net scarf over my head and clip the sides. It's cool because the air blows through, but every hair stays in place while being protected from dust."

Maybe us farm ladies could start a new style! I wonder how it would do under the hood of my parka ...

Now wait a minute! I didn't say I had tried the "toilet tissue covering my hair" thing, I said I should consider trying it! (Are you sure you don't want to try it, Marci??) By the way, I added Jonathan's blog address so you can check out what he has written. I don't know why the link didn't work; it didn't work for me, either.

I think it would give me what I call "toque head" the look we get when we've been out shovelling snow for a while and our hair is flat against our head. Not the most flattering hair style unless you go back to the 20's hairstyles *G*. If you decide to try, take a picture for us :)Heather